Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Living In Thailand

One of the
interesting things about living in Thailand is that average Americans know next
to nothing at all about the country. They know about Thai food, but beyond that
they would be hard pressed to find Thailand on a map. I’d bet that most of them
couldn’t find Thailand on a map of Southeast Asia! Regarding Thai people,
Americans have a vague belief that Thai people are friendly, and they have the
completely erroneous belief that Thai women are easy. They have the first part
right, but they are way off on the second part. A certain very narrow element
of the Thai economy notwithstanding, Thai women are actually very modest, more
modest than a lot of women in America or Europe, not to mention the many places
in the world where modesty really is completely optional.

Americans don’t
know much about geography in general. That includes American geography. What state
is directly north of Iowa? Good for you if you said, “Minnesota,” but you’d
stump a lot of people with that question. It’s even worse with the world at
large. Not only the geography, but also the cultures of the world are
mysterious to Americans. This obviously includes our current president, of whom
people say that he might be the greatest president of all time, because he gets
more accomplished in one average weekday than any other president in history
ever accomplished in the best week of his presidency, which they know is true
because he told them himself. He probably thinks that he knows a lot about
geography and world cultures, too, but if you listen to what he says, that’s
not the case. The other day he suggested that Nigerians live in huts.

That would
probably put him in the fat part of the bell curve of Americans’ knowledge of
the world. Regarding Thailand, I think that the first image that comes to mind
for most Americans is one of Vietnamese farming villages during that
unpleasantness back in the 1960s and ‘70s. You know, the thatched roofs, the
black pajamas, and the conical hats. That’s South East Asia, right? And the
cities still look like old Saigon, right? Well no, no they don’t. Ho Chi Min City
these days looks more like Pittsburgh than it looks like old Saigon.

Thailand is not
some Third World backwater. (Nor is Vietnam, for that matter.) Those do still
exist in the world, but their numbers are fewer now. People know that Third
World means undeveloped, as in no roads, no indoor plumbing, no electricity in
the countryside, etc. They also know that First World means the United States,
the developed world. Thailand is a DEVELOPING country, and it’s a very advanced
developing country at that. (More advanced than Vietnam, another developing
country, for instance.) That’s Second World. Even the poorest citizens out in
the countryside of Thailand have indoor plumbing, with potable municipal water,
and electricity. Almost all of them. It’s not perfect yet, that’s what
developing means! Not perfect, but the electricity stays on for all twenty-four
hours of almost every day, all year. And I’ll tell you what, Thailand has wall
to wall cell phone coverage, border to boarder, north, south, east, and west,
clear as a bell. That is still on America’s wish list, a goal that we hope will
be achieved in our lifetimes, unless we’re over forty-five or so, then forget
it. The mall in my neighborhood is as nice as anything I’ve been to in Los
Angeles, and the mall’s movie theater is nicer than American theaters. (With
tickets priced at four or five bucks.)

Large parts of
America these days look like parts of a developing country, so Americans are not really in a position to look down on other countries. The crumbling
infrastructure, obvious decay, and barely habitable housing of huge swaths of
the “Rust Belt” really suffer in comparison to South Korea, Japan, Canada, and
much of Europe. That “Shining City on the Hill” stuff is a lost dream by now.
Beyond appearances, many of those aforementioned countries have higher
standards of living than America, too.

In Thailand, add
in some very good doctors and hospitals, a good nationwide transportation
system, fiber-optic wi-fi, etc., and the general reasonableness of prices, and
it’s a great deal. Then there’s the great weather, and the best food in the
world, and friendly, hospitable people. It’s a total-package that’s hard to
beat.

Believe me, it’s
no hardship living in Thailand. Here, I’m living in a very nice condo, eating
delicious food, and traveling by taxi without worrying about the cost. If I
were to move back to the States, I’d have to live in a trailer in the Mojave Desert,
and I’d be eating bargain tuna fish out of the can, with crackers, and wishing
that I could afford the Bumble Bee tuna. If I tried to duplicate my current
standard of living, I’d run out of money in less than a year. Add a minor
medical emergency and I’d run out of cash immediately.

The Best Part

The real selling
point for Thailand is that everything that happens, every day, happens in the
Thai style. I had a perfect example of this today up at school.

I teach in the
law department at a big Thai university. “Huge” would be more descriptive, because
we’re one of the biggest universities in the world by the number of students.
We have two campuses in Bangkok, and remote campuses in forty-four provinces
(law is taught at twenty-six of these). The law faculty and staff had their
combined Christmas-New Year’s party today at the main campus, and the whole
thing was uproarious fun, which is the core value of the Thai style.

The picture at
the head of this post was a photo-op upon getting off the elevator. The Santa’s
helpers in the photo are office staff who provide this kind of duty for all of
our parties and “seminars.” (Essentially another word for parties.) Next came
signing in, where friends of mine who were working the desk jumped up to take
photographs with us and several minutes were devoted to socializing. (All Thai
work stations are overmanned to allow for this kind of thing.)

I could describe
the show part of the proceedings, but we’re running a bit long here. I should
say that everybody’s name went into a box at sign-in and there were almost
enough door prizes to give one to everyone present. In between the acts the MCs
would take over and give out some door prizes. (Many fairly expensive items,
too. I won an item that costs about $60.) The final song and dance number
summed it all up. There were about fifteen people on the stage, still in
costume from the show. There were young women dressed as women from different
countries, a young man dressed as an Indian dancing girl, the Santa’s helpers
were there, as was a Thai James Bond with an enormous fake pistol, a couple of
MCs dressed for cold weather for unknown reasons, and they were all dancing to
some music and singing a song from the lyrics displayed on a Karaoke video
monitor, the lyrics to a song that half of them had obviously never heard
before. The dancing was awful, as was the singing. The players were talking and
laughing amongst themselves. Half of the
audience was not paying any attention; they were sitting at their tables
talking together, eating this Korean ice-cream like dessert, and laughing. It
was all so casual and comfortably enjoyable* that I sat and smiled at the
spectacle of it.

If we were in South Korea, I thought to myself, the show would be over-rehearsed and professional,
and everybody in the audience would be watching intently, and nobody at all
would be having fun. But this was Thailand, so everyone was just coasting along
on the fun program. It was, indeed, lots of fun.

As far as living
in Thailand goes, I’ll simply say for the umpteenth time, “what’s not to love?”
And yes, it’s safe. That’s a question that I get a lot, “is it safe there?” It’s
a lot safer than either of my American home cities, New York and Los Angeles. Then
there’s, “don’t you want to come home for medical care?” Why would I? So that I
could pay five times as much for the same quality of work? And as my father
never tired of asking me, “how can you live in a country where you can’t talk
to anybody?” I repeatedly explained it to him, but he could never fathom that I
could actually speak enough Thai to talk to anybody about most things that are
likely to come up in day to day life. My reading is very limited, but I can
read menus just fine.

So I’m not going
anywhere. I’ve settled down. When I die, just take me to the temple for
cremation. Do what you want with the ashes and the bone fragments. Those
decisions are for the living. In the meantime, I’m happy to be here, happy to
be a guest in this wonderful country. Thanks, everybody! And thanks for
inviting me to these parties. It’s always a great time.

*English has no
word for this. In Thai, it is “sabai;” in German it is “gemuetlich.”

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About Me

Mr. C is: a reformed lawyer; a religious atheist; a useful "Handy Man;" an amateur social scientist; a beloved teacher; a well liked husband and father; Ambassador Emeritus from, and to, Planet X; a freelance professor; taxi driver to the stars (Joe DiMaggio and Ronald McDonald, both out of uniform); an excellent fire fighter; an enthusiastic but untalented musician; an experienced counselor; a top-notch disk jockey; an all around get-along-guy; a cunning linguist; a would-be lifestyle victim; a Masonic wannabe; a frequent reader; Professor Irwin Corey's Ph.D. adviser; an accomplished driver and motorcyclist; a famous rockologist; a reliable but indifferent bullshit detective; a poor speller; a proud United States Navy veteran (honorably discharged, barely); the Ayatollah of Ass-o-Hola; a drug legend; a Returned Peace Corps volunteer (Thailand); a generally charming man; nationally and internationally known from coast to coast; a legend in his own mind; a cultural-anthropological critic-at-large; an avenging angel who coolly bides his time; Soul Brother number 37; and a friend to the poor.